


Aftermath

by anonemone



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Multi, this is a 1+1 fic basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7101670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonemone/pseuds/anonemone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A smuggler leaves Leia. A different one comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

It’s been five months since Ben—since Luke’s school fell, and three since Lando was last around. Usually three months is a bit short; Leia and Han sometimes have, in the past, had to wait for as long as over a year for Lando, but three months later and he’s back, in their bed, his arms wrapped tenderly around her. He’s _here._

Han isn’t, though.

“Leaving is what he does,” Lando says, quietly. She can hear the reassurance in his voice, but his resignation tells the story of that day, so many years ago, when he woke up missing his Han and his ship. He’s had to deal with Han’s way far longer than she has, after all.

“What you do, too,” she says, and there’s no trace of blame or bitterness or much any emotion. She’s left those long ago, and all she had felt then is now directed at somebody else.

And Lando doesn’t leave, not really; he just doesn’t stay. He comes and he goes and is always away but is also, in the ways that matter, always there.

Han leaves, left, with Chewie and the Falcon, with decisiveness and finality and no way of finding him.

“I never belonged here. I had to return to Bespin. You of anyone understand.”

She nods (though it’s more burrowing herself deeper into his neck, in this position) because it’s true.

(Han was always angry, whenever they watched him leave. They’d argue about it every time. _How can you just let him leave?_ , he’d shout. _How can you just accept it?_

 _He’ll come back,_ she’d always say, _or don’t you trust him?_

And then they’d hold each other through the night, because their loss and their longing trumps their lashing out at each other, always.)

It’s true but it also isn’t. They all fall back to old patterns, but while Han was always a smuggler, and Leia was always a leader, Lando could have chosen to be either. So she asks: “are you staying?”

“Cloud city will always be your ally,” he says instead, “and your home.” He cards his hand through her hair. Leia knows he can see the grey starting to grow in it, even in the dim light of the room. “Our home.”

Leia sighs. She isn’t sure why she thought this time would be different from all those times before. But it’s still a promise that he won’t truly leave, so she takes it. “If Han comes by—“

“I’ll call you.”

They’re silent then, considering each other, and both feeling the absence in their bed. In their lives. Leia traces lazy pattern on his arm.

He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself. “You know he’ll come back to you, right? It might take a while, but…” His next words hang in the silence. _He came back to me._

 _That took nearly a decade_ , she doesn’t say _, and you fundamentally changing, and him being caught up in the center of a war he never wanted to be a part of_. Instead, she cranes her neck up, places a gentle kiss on his cheek. “To us.”

***

Lando’s smile disappears almost as soon as his face shows up on the holo. God, she must look like a right mess. “What happened?”

“He’s dead,” Leia just says, simply, because there’s no other way to say it, but nothing could have prepared her for how Lando’s face crumples and how he just seems to fold in on himself, the picture of broken regality. Then again, she probably looks much the same. “Kylo Ren killed him.”

 _Ben_ , he says so quietly the mics don’t pick it up, or maybe he really just mouthed it. His cheeks are wet. “Are you—“

He stops, because it’s a stupid question, and also because his voice breaks. Leia wants to reach out and hold him, dry his tears. She’s crying too, she knows. She’s tired of crying. “There are new kids. You’ll like them. Remind me of us.”

Lando huffs out a wet laugh at that. “Insufferable, then?”

“Oh, the worst.” She smiles, and already she feels better, a thin coat of happiness over her grief. “They got the missing section of the map. One of them is bringing Luke back.”

Lando hears the question she doesn’t ask, the plea she can’t get herself to make out loud, and once again her heart hurts with love for this man, who understands both her and Han so much and so instinctively. (No wonder he’s so good at sabacc. Or maybe that’s just the cheating.)

Sometimes, Leia wonders how it would have turned out, if Lando had always been there to bridge the gap that sometimes existed between her and Han. Would things have been different? Would Han still have left?

But it’s too late for that now.

Even through the holo Leia can all but hear the gears turning in Lando’s head. He is planning, making a list of things he’d have to put in order, things he’d have to wrap up. She imagines the list he’s building, then stops. She has enough lists of her own. He nods. “I’m leaving for there first thing tomorrow.”

 Maybe it’s the Force, but something tells Leia that this time, he’ll stay.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I didn't make Leia sound too... weak? I mean she just lost so much both times, and there are only so many people she's ready to show vulnerability to.   
> I wanna write a fluffy space adventure prequel at some point, but as of now my non-existent writing chops are not up to it so.


End file.
